


toilers of the sea

by voksen



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Other, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:52:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1563668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there are tentacle monsters in the sea outside of toulon. valjean thinks he knows what he's getting into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	toilers of the sea

The water closes over him with a crash like a cannonshot; despite himself, Valjean is dazed for a moment by the force of his fall. To dive would have been too obviously an escape attempt; he had had to hit the water badly, there had been no choice, but he is paying for it now in the ringing of his ears and the stinging ache of his side. That moment is all he allows himself; as soon as he has gathered his wits he kicks quickly downwards.

He does not stop when he passes the keel of the ship, nor when the water grows cold and the light behind him dims, but swims deeper still. They will search for him on the surface, for bodies float, or in the tangled anchors of the ships nearby - they will not search for him below, nor suspect him of fleeing there. Not even from the bagne at Toulon did men attempt the open sea for escape; they hid in ships, they ran into the alleys or into the countryside, but never this. Even he had hesitated at the last, on the edge of the lower yardarm, but Fantine's white face had wavered before him, a gull had screamed in her rasping broken voice --

Below him, in the black water, a shadow stirs, vast and empty, and a precious gasp of air slips from him. He steels himself and swims on: one kick, another. The current swirls around him in an unnatural vortex; above him, the faint filtered sunlight vanishes entirely. Valjean holds himself still and steady, waiting even as his lungs begin to ache and his heart trips out of rhythm, caught in fear and anticipation.

The first touch is soft, almost delicate; it might have been a strand of kelp against his foot if not for the strange feeling of presence around him and the sudden silent darkness. The thing brushes him again, a yielding, velvety feel, an unnatural warmth in the chill of the water. For an instant he is reminded of the bite of the brand against his skin - and then it is on him: a long strand curls about his wrist and forearm, another about his ankle, a third brushes his shoulder, then presses against his throat and up across his chin, scratching itself against his half-grown beard.

Valjean swallows; it pauses, echoing the pulse in a strange rippling movement, and then presses against his lips. He closes his eyes, though it makes no difference, and opens his mouth to the sea and the soft press of boneless flesh. At first all he can taste is the brine, salty and wild; then the thing twists against his tongue, holding it down, swelling firm between his lips and teeth until it fills his mouth entirely with tasteless heat; he swallows down the seawater convulsively and only barely manages to keep from grasping for some hold on it. To struggle now would be an insult, and it is more than his life that depends on his safe escape - he must keep sight of that - he _must_. The thing presses downwards and he chokes and gags for a terrible eternity before it stretches so full in his throat that he cannot even do that; just as it seems to him that it is too much, that he has failed, his lungs at last give out and he takes a sharp breath of air; hot, damp, salty air, from within the depths of the creature - but it is air, and he is not dead.

Around him, the water is growing warmer and stiller until he feels almost as if he floats rather in a sun-warmed pond than beneath an ocean; when he opens his eyes he still sees nothing, but somehow between the deliberate gentleness and the warmth, his fear is seeping away; even the discomfort of his stretched jaw fades quickly. When he has stilled beneath it again, the grip on his ankle loosens and shifts upwards in a long steady spiral beneath the leg of his worn trousers until it reaches his knee; it is slow and careful - it is far gentler than he'd thought it would be, for all the strange horror of it, and when it catches his other foot and weaves itself up that calf as well, he does not flinch. The thing tugs his legs apart slowly; though he does not resist it, he can feel the hidden strength in it, more like steel than the velvety jelly it seems.

It pushes a loop of itself into his hand; he wraps his fingers around it, hot and yielding beneath his fingers; strokes lightly, trying to mimic the soft grip it touched him with; feels a shiver of pleasure like a distant echo tickling along his spine, startling and alien. Before he can do more than blink, his other hand is full. He squeezes gently and feels another ripple of sensation - it isn't his, he realizes slowly, as if through fog: he is feeling what it feels - and then a slight pressure at his waist, thin tendrils picking cleverly at his buttons until his trousers fall open and it slips past. He stills with weary anticipation.

All of the stories are clear on what to expect, although it is something he has little enough experience with; only the rough grip of his own hand, and the long years have ground most of the desire for even that out of him. But he is no stranger to noises in the dark, and he is ready for the pain, the violation, the horror that keeps even the most desperate men out of the sea's depths. He has endured years of that already, even if it had worn a different name; what is another hour or two, when it means safety and salvation?

But it does not come. The tendrils stroke over his skin with the same incomprehensible gentleness with which the creature had first touched him; they slip across his belly and down his thighs, mapping him out, learning him, and only then do they curl themselves around his soft prick. They rest there, motionless, until some of the wary tension eases from him and Valjean moves his hands tentatively over the thicker flesh in his hands again; it repeats the motion, and the double shock of it sends shivers through him, waking something in him that is almost desire.

He strokes it more firmly, guessing at what is required of him, and it returns the attention in kind, a gentle, pulsating series of movements that could never be mistaken for any man's hand, that is somehow all the more pleasurable for it. His breath comes quicker; his mouth feels too wet, even filled by the creature within him, and he tries to swallow to no avail - but the echoed sensation of his tongue and lips shifting around it shoots through him like fire, like a revelation, and he feels his body slowly remembering how to respond. The tentacles between his legs grow thicker as he begins to harden beneath them, their strange caresses firmer and more insistent; the ones in his hands loop circles about his forearms again, pressing themselves tighter into his palms.

It wants his pleasure as well as its own; he does not understand, but there seems no other explanation. He does not know what to think, only that, somehow, it is almost more difficult to surrender than to be taken. He shudders beneath a particularly tight caress, his body tense even as he continues to stroke and squeeze mechanically, but it is not until it slips a long tendril up beneath his smock and tweaks at his nipple that he moans against it and feels its surging pleasure again.

There is no other way, and at least it does not seem to intend him harm. Closing his eyes against the darkness, Valjean sucks tentatively on the tentacle that fills his mouth and throat. He knows what to do, if only from lewd insults between men, half-heard and mostly forgotten stories told behind his back: he tries these things, slowly, one at a time, hollowing his cheeks as he sucks harder, tilting his head forward to take a little more of it into himself, sliding his tongue against the sweet, soft skin. He feels each movement pleasing it, the distant reflection making him think for the first time in his life of how it might be to have someone there between his legs, to have a mouth on him instead of a hand and feel the press of lips and the swirl of a tongue; to have someone want to please him as the sea-creature does: because it can, not because it must.

Trembling again, he pushes his hips forwards against it, feeling an alien excitement rising beneath his own. The tentacles wrapped about his shins move and slide upwards, coiling further up his legs and tugging them a bit further apart. When he lets them, with no resistance, they squeeze gently - he senses something from it that's almost like approval - and there is a soft ripping noise, distorted by the shift of the water, as it tears his trousers apart at the seams and lets them sink away.

He is not afraid. He should think of how he will manage when he gets back to land half-naked, but he does not; he thinks only of the gentle pressure on his thighs, of the light flicker of a thin tendril-tip that curves up and brushes circles around the head of his prick, teasing at the hole almost as if it means to thrust itself in there, to imitate the way it fills his throat- he gives another choked groan. If he could speak, he would beg: he does not even know if it is possible, but God, he wants it, to be touched inside as well as out, to be filled and held and allowed to forget, just for a moment, everything but this.

It teases an instant longer than he thinks he can bear, then slips down, tracing between the close-wrapped tentacles, feather-light touches against the sensitive underside of his shaft, like a tongue between fingers, as if it knows his thoughts. And perhaps it does, for when it reaches the base of his shaft it does not stop, but brushes past his balls, sliding further between his legs until it is pressing itself in a small coil against his hole. _Please_ , he thinks, _please_ \- and slowly, easily, it pushes into him.

Even curled up on itself it is thin enough to slip inside him painlessly, a strange, foreign feeling that has him clutching more tightly at the flesh in his hands; flesh that has grown strangely slick and slippery against his palms, sliding easily through his grip. It is thick, there, the loops so wide his fingers cannot quite close around them, and only half thinking about it, he shifts in its grip, wanting to reach down, to touch the one inside him, to feel the difference. 

As soon as he moves it tightens its grip on his arms and thighs almost painfully, holding him still; the tentacle in his mouth swells, stretching his lips wide around it - it slides easily across them, slick as the ones in his hands, and a new, sweet tang to the saltwater flavor of it. He laps at it again and it thrusts into his mouth in answer, short, gentle, slow pushes that do not deepen even when he sucks at it more eagerly, chasing the taste with lips and tongue, swallowing down a mouthful of spit and slickness. 

After a moment it loosens its hold on him, but he does not try to move again; he only rocks his hips backwards, trying to take more of it - but it's too thin, too flexible, and all he accomplishes is making the tentacles that wrap around his cock twist over his skin in a way that makes him shiver and push forwards. There's another of those surges of alien pleasure, and the tentacles that grasp him squeeze again - gently this time, more of a caress than a restraint - and then the fine dry tip of a second tendril is on him, tracing a shivery line across the back of his neck, then down along the ill-fitting smock, pressing the billowing cloth close to his body. It pauses when it reaches the thick, strong tentacle wrapped about his waist and he groans, half in urgency, half in disappointment - but it does not hold back long, and when it touches skin again, curving briefly over his hip before turning inwards, it is as slick as the rest.

He knows what it will do, or hopes, though it has been so long since he last touched himself, taking himself briefly, mechanically in hand, that he does not think he can last much longer. He is distantly surprised he's lasted as long as this, no matter that the creature clearly knows exactly how to play him, how to draw him out and keep him there. Though perhaps that is its intention - to rouse him and leave him wanting --

It pushes into him again before he can finish the thought, the second tentacle sliding alongside the first. This one is thicker even at the tip and grows wider with every inch; it stretches him more and more, until it is nearly painful, until he is full to aching and consumed with an intensity of sensations he had never before imagined. For a long moment it is still, though the tentacles that hold him shift and pulse with each shallow breath he takes, leaving him trembling on the edge; he can feel its satisfaction, a low murmur in the back of his mind, threaded through with its own pleasure, keen and clear - and then it moves inside him, a slow, insistent writhing that twists the coiled tentacles against his insides, rubbing against spots he had not known existed.

That, finally, is too much: with a shallow, sobbing breath he is coming, his hands clenching tight about the creature as his orgasm overwhelms him with a terrible, shattering force, a pleasure that rips apart the delicate building of the past hour and leaves him broken open and vulnerable.

But it does not stop or slacken; it thrusts deeper into him, its echoed sensations rising even as his finally begin to fade, and begins to fuck him in earnest, the tentacles sliding into him in a staggered, unpredictable rhythm. The coils about his oversensitive prick squeeze tighter, slick and firm and almost unbearable. He gasps, half-choking, and thrusts forward involuntarily, half trying to escape, half trying to drive deeper into its grip despite the pain. The water swirls around him at the movement, a sudden cool current against his overheated skin; Valjean finds himself caught up in its need, twisting helplessly in its grasp and rewarded by a new jolt of arousal every time he bucks his hips until he's fever-hot again and even the stretched, sore ache fades to nothingness beneath the sheer weight of their joined desperation.

He's beyond word, beyond thought in a way that should be terrifying, but there is no room for fear between the creature's unshakable grasp on his body and solid, open presence in his mind, both of them reaching after the same thing. And, when he comes again, rocking back hard onto the tentacles that fill him, now so thick, so full he feels like a thin shell around them, it is there with him - there is a surge of sweetness in his mouth, the tentacles in his hands flex and shudder, the ones inside him seem to swell even more - and its final pleasure dwarfs his, sweeping over him uncontrollably, irresistibly, until even with its air he feels like he is drowning, until everything - pleasure, pain, worry, self - fades away into the darkness of the sea.

 

There is something cool and wet lapping at his ankles. For long moments he is too tired, too lost to do anything more than notice this; at last, with more exertion than it deserves, Valjean opens his eyes. It is night, though not dark: the sky is cloudless, and the full moon and stars bright both in the sky and in the reflection of the calm sea. He lies on his back on a small dune, the high tide washing his feet, wrapped in a ragged length of thick, coarse sailcloth and nothing else. It is warm for the season; he is comfortable enough. On the horizon there stands a lighthouse; otherwise, there is nothing but ocean and sand and peace.

But already, slowly, he has begun to think again: how he will stand and begin to walk again, how he will find passable clothing and quick work enough to pay for it, how he will make his long way north to the child who waits there, the child who has been waiting too long. It seems overwhelming, but he knows it is nothing that cannot be done. It is a road he has walked before, after all, though what lies at the end of it this time is more pressing than his own fragile salvation. And - he smiles just a little, his mouth quirking of its own accord, and finds in this small joke the strength to sit up and brush the sand from his hair- perhaps the beginning has been a little different also.


End file.
